20 "Do you jçnow what day this is, dear?" . got my hands full up with what I'rn doing right here." "Oh, no. To tell the truth"-he laughed uneasily-"I don't know just how to tell you about the proposition I wan t to nlake you because, as I said, it is so very peculiar." "Yeah?" said Mr. Eppley. "Yes, indeed. You see, Mr . Eppley, I've always been a rather inventive sort of chap. Always doing things with nlY hands. Even when I was just a shaver in Flushing, my parents tried over and over to make me go out and play ganles -rugger and, er, other sporting events -but I always preferred to stay in my little toolshop and, well, just tinker. G'Ihacun à son goût, you know." "Right," said Mr. Eppley. . ""'T ell, it kept on right through school and college-I was Harvard '13. P'erhaps you are a Harvard man, Mr. Eppley? . . . No? Well, anyway, all through my life, where other fellows ll1ight turn to books or the theatre or the, ah, flowing bowl, it was machinery with llle. You might say nlachinery was . I f " il1Y mIstress. n a way, 0 course. "You liked loconlotive engines and alL you mean?" said Mr. Eppley. . Edmunds gently. "I'm not asking you for a job." "No? Then-" "No. I already have my dreanl. I am a subway builder, Mr. Eppley!" "You're what?" "I am a subway builder! I ha7;e built a suhway!" "Where?" asked Mr. Eppley, but he had already begun to tingle with a hor- rid presen tinlen t. "I'll show you," said Mr. Edmunds, and he got up and skipped over to Mr. Eppley's window. "I wonder if you'd mind stepping over here just a minute, Mr. Eppley?" Mr. Eppley followed hinl. "Thére it is," said Mr. Ed- munds, and pointed, as Mr. Eppley had been miserably sure he would, at that toiling ant heap so far below. " I )) " d M E I see, sal r. pp ey dull y . "It took capital and it took ingenuity," said Mr. Ednlunds proudly . "You have no idea how, well, cluttered N ew York is underneath. But it's the longest subway in the world and the straightest. Runs from the Bat- tery clear up to Yonkers with- out a curve. What do you think of that? " "It's something, all right," said Mr. Eppley. "Say, who knows about this thing, anyways?" "Oh, hardly anybody except the nlen I hired," said Mr. Edmunds. "I rather dispensed with the formalities. Just de- cided to dig it and went right ahead. Of course there were mistakes - we couldn't hope to avoid a cellar here and there-but on the whole it went quiet- ly." "I t certainly did," said Mr. Eppley. "Be finished tonlorrow unless some- thing goes wrong," said Mr. Ednlunds, "and that brings me again to why I canle to see you. As I told you, Mr. Eppley, I'm a creative sort of beggar. As soon as I finish one job-bing!- I want to be off and away and at some- thing else. Off with the old, on with the new. That sort of thing." "Oh, sure," said Mr. Eppley feebly. "The point is, though, it's a little difficult to focus on a new project until the old one is cleared up. What I want- ed to ask you, Mr. Eppley, is just this: how does one go about disposing of a subway? I asked several people-put- ting it to them as a purely hypotheti- cal case, of course-and they all men- tioned you. And that," he finished tri -, "Something like that. \Vell, when I canle to New York last year-and here we COlne to my point-I said to myself, now what is the most exciting thing a man could do in this great wonderful city? \Vhat would I like to do nlost? And what do you suppose I said, Mr. Eppley? " "You got me," confessed Mr. Ep- pley. "Subways! Paul, I said to nlyself, that's the job for you! Subways! T un- nelling under those great buildings, through the granite and sand and water, so that all those hurrying nlil- lions could get to and fro just a lit- tle more cornfortably and quickly. It seemed to nle the greatest career in the world, and I pronlised r yself I ld ' " I " wou n t rest unt!- "I'nl sorry, Mr. Ednlunds," said 1\;lr. Eppley, who thought he saw a light, "but we ain't got any jobs here just at the moment. Things are pretty slow right now, what with the lousy Board of Estirnate raising a stink every time a rnan tries to order a carload of fishplate. Why, only last week-" "Ah, but I don't think you quite understand me, Mr. Eppley," said Mr.